“It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
—Ernest Hemingway
Wonder what Ernest Hemingway would have thought of Killer Nashville?
Seems to me Papa would have been at his irascible best and very much in his element at the annual late-August conference for thriller, mystery and suspense writers and literature lovers.
Telling great stories about his world travels; opining on fellow authors and the state of the nation; espousing dark, biting humor and inspiring words of wisdom about the craft of writing at Saturday night’s closing Guest of Honor banquet. Imbibing at Tootsie’s or one of Nashville’s other legendary honky-tonks after the daylong convention sessions come to a close.
Hemingway had many insightful comments on writing, but these quotations illustrate, for me, the essence of how easy — and yet how excruciatingly difficult — it is to tell your story.
We all have good stories. Whether shaped by a lifetime of experiences, some horrible or bittersweet incident from the past, or perhaps the flights of pure fantasy.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
—Ernest Hemingway
But articulating your story — getting those ideas in your head to flow through your neck, down your arms and out your fingertips to tap the keyboard and form words, thoughts, feelings — that is the hard part these days, especially if you want your work to be taken seriously.
We can all write. But what Killer Nashville offered me when I first began attending was a place to learn to hone the craft of writing, to mold and shape that story in such a way that it will be considered publishable. A place of hope.
I liken a weekend at Killer Nashville to a trip to Disneyland. For writers and readers alike, it’s a thrill ride waiting to happen.
My debut novel Vendetta Stone, a fictional true-crime thriller set in Nashville, might be described as where Adventureland intersects with Main Street, U.S.A. I have a serial killer on the loose in Nashville. Jackson Stone is a man on a mission.
There’s Fantasyland. Vampires, zombies, dungeons, dragons, zombies. All good antagonists for your hero to combat. Let the games begin.
Tomorrowland? Frontierland? Whether your story setting is last century or a hundred years from now, you will most certainly find someone who shares your interests at Killer Nashville.
“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”
—Ernest Hemingway
I knew I had a good story when I went to my first Killer Nashville convention in 2010. Buoyed with optimism and unfettered enthusiasm, I put on my rose-colored glasses and took the first draft (we all know what Hemingway said about first drafts; he wasn’t lying) of my book to the Franklin Marriott to tell the publishing world about my Great American Novel.
That’s where reality set in, and I knew I still had a lot of work to do. The pitch sessions went fairly well, with a couple of invitations to send agents or publishers pages of my work, and the critical feedback I received from Guest of Honor speakers was enough to assure me that I was on the right track.
Jeffery Deaver (The Bone Collector) is an entertaining speaker and workaholic writer who shared his year-round process for cranking out one best-seller after another.
In 2011, Robert Dugoni (The Jury Master) broke down how to write compelling beginnings and endings to your chapters.
Heywood Gould (Fort Apache — The Bronx) was kind enough to give me some pointers at the 2012 convention on novel vs. screenwriting.
D.P. Lyle, MD (Royal Pains) had us in stitches as he discussed forensics and famous cases, and Anne Perry’s insights into redemption kept the 2014 audience spellbound.
Dr. Bill Bass of Knoxville, whose pen name is Jefferson Bass with writing partner Jon Jefferson, has regaled audiences at several Killer Nashville sessions with photographs and tales about ‘The Body Farm’. That’s the everyday name of the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropolgy Center. Dr. Bass is the founder and former director of the Center, which studies human decomposition and has become an invaluable tool for crime scene investigators.
I’m very much looking forward to hearing what 2014 Guests of Honor Lisa Jackson (Tell Me) and William Kent Krueger (Ordinary Grace) will have to say this August’s ninth annual convention.
But one author I’d really like to hear at Killer Nashville?
Mr. Quote Machine.
Ernest Hemingway.
Guess I’ll just have to settle for one final quotation from Papa.
“The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.”
—Ernest Hemingway
Truth.
About Tom
Veteran sports writer and copy editor Tom Wood has covered a wide variety of events for The Tennessean—ranging from Nashville-area universities to boxing, from the Iroquois Memorial Steeplechase to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Game. He also spent two summers writing entertainment features for The Tennessean and worked in Gannett's Nashville Design Studio. Since his retirement, he has continued to contribute freelance articles for several news outlets. He had a fiction short story published in the 2012 Civil War anthology Filtered Through Time and contributed an interview to the 1989 collection Feast of Fear: Conversations With Stephen King. The native North Carolinian and Middle Tennessee State University graduate is has also appeared as a background character actor in several episodes of the ABC series Nashville as well as several movie projects and a music video. Vendetta Stone is Wood’s first novel.